Why is there Ash in Supermacs food?

yaledo

I remember seeing years ago (when I had a cat) that there was ash in the ingredients of cat food.

Check out the right-most column in the nutritional information published by Supermacs...
http://www.supermacs.ie/pdf/Supermacs_Nutritional_Info.pdf

Is this normal? What is it for?

reprazant

Probably the same reason that is in cat food

ASH 'the incombustible inorganic residue remaining after incineration; generally the mineral content of the food' *

Contrary to popular belief ash in pet food has not been collected from a fire place and added for bulk!

In pet food the constituents are broken down in to several components: Moisture, protein, fat, and sometimes fibre and carbohydrates (often found in lower quality foods).

Anything that does not come into one of these categories is called by the general term 'ash'. Therefore ash contains minerals and vitamins and is essential for your pet's health.

It is called ash because when the food is burned (to determine its analysis) carbohydrate, fibre, fat and protein are all incinerated. Ash is the part of the food that remains after incineration.

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_ash_in_cat_food

yaledo

Ok - so it doesn't mean that ash was used as an ingredient in the food - it's just jargon for "stuff that doesn't burn during the test for nutritional content of food"